Multivitamin Use Linked to Lowered Cancer Risk

After a series of conflicting reports about whether vitamin pills can stave off chronic disease, researchers announced on Wednesday that a large clinical trial of nearly 15,000 older male doctors followed for more than a decade found that those taking a daily multivitamin experienced 8 percent fewer cancers than the subjects taking dummy pills.

A randomized, double-blinded clinical trial, the kind considered the most rigorous type of study, it was one of the largest and longest efforts to address questions about vitamin use. The reduction in total cancers was small but statistically significant.